


In the Attic

by weerus



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Asthma Attacks, Creepy, Established Relationship, Haunted Houses, Headaches & Migraines, M/M, Past Character Death, Plot Twists, Spooky, Suspense, asthmatic character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:45:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13940925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weerus/pseuds/weerus
Summary: There's ghosts haunting their home.





	In the Attic

**Author's Note:**

> i gotta say - i did rush this one especially towards the end so im not too proud of this fic, but the idea of it rlly got to me so i just HAD to write it down
> 
> this fic was a rlly nice throwback to my early writing days - i used to plan and write a lot of horror one shots just for fun. writing this... well.. it was really fun describing some dark atmospheres! it certainly has been a while
> 
> enjoy some spooky shit!

_Darkness. That’s all Seungcheol saw._

 

_The edges of his vision were like static. He was in his room, that’s the most he knows. Jihoon, the love of his life, was sleeping soundly next to him. He’s had this dream many times before and knows what’s about to happen. Footsteps and creaking floorboards sounded outside his bedroom door before_ slam _! Someone was behind their door, pounding on it and they wanted to get inside. No matter how many times Seungcheol tried to wake Jihoon up, he wouldn’t even stir. It was as if the man was dead to the world. The door suddenly flung open, a dark, fuzzy figure blocking the light outside with their overcasted shadow. They were a menacing, vile presence as pitch black vines of darkness grew around the body. Each corner of the bedroom started to seep with dark ooze, wild streaks painting across the walls. The figure flickered and faded before disappearing. It was finally gone._

 

_Then, it reappeared at the foot of his bed, its pure white eyes visible._

 

Seungcheol jolts awake, forehead and armpits sweating in anxiousness. The dream was so real, so lifelike, it was as though he had experienced it before. It was the same dream he’d have on occasions and it never changes.

 

“That dream again?” a voice belonging to the man that resided next to him piped up. It was Jihoon, his boyfriend of about four years, alive and in the flesh.

 

“Yeah… Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

 

“Well.” He yawns. _Cute._ “I’m awake now I guess.” He reaches for an object on his bedside table, an inhaler. He presses the top button down and breathes in the medicine sharply. Jihoon had always been asthmatic as long as Seungcheol could remember. It’s possible that Jihoon could possibly contract a form of COPD, but so far his condition never got worse or better. Sometimes he would shows symptoms of an asthma attack where he just wouldn’t stop coughing and Seungcheol would rush around the house to search for his inhaler. Seungcheol was no doctor, but he thought Jihoon still needed his inhaler no matter what. There were no signs of Jihoon recovering from his asthma, but there was still hope that he would get better one day.

 

While Jihoon still lays all cozy in bed, Seungcheol springs up and out of the warm prison. The window next to their bed had thick curtains that effectively blocked out any harsh sunlight. Seungcheol clutched the ends of the curtain and pulled them open to gaze outside. The view outside was just fog, thick fog for miles. Usually there would be some nice trees and a view of a beautiful lake outside his bedroom window, but that was all cloaked in heavy fog. Seungcheol’s forgotten how long it’s been foggy. Maybe a week? A month? He couldn’t remember; he had become accustomed to the constant weather.

 

Just as Seungcheol was appreciating the view, a burst of pain seers through his head. He fists his locks of hair in agony to prevent a cry of pain, but a grunt manages to escape. His fucking _headaches_. They were one of the worst things he hated about himself, the other being at how easily scared he gets at practically everything. His headaches were always easily cured with either paracetamol or ibuprofen. Either of the drugs worked fine to rid of his headache. Both drugs were stored in the bathroom cabinet, where Seungcheol rushes off to. He grabs a packet and pops out two tablets before he swallows them dry. Seungcheol regrets the decision of swallowing them dry as the disgusting taste of the powder lingers at the back of his throat, but he was too impatient to get himself a glass of water downstairs.

 

The house he was in belonged to his parents, as he was born from a wealthy family. For the past month or so, he and Jihoon were house sitting until his parents come back from their holiday overseas. He didn’t know when they would return, but he intends to continue until his parents come back tanned and happy from their holiday. It wasn’t considered ‘lame’ to live in your parents house when your parents are rich as fuck and have about a billion free rooms in their house, right?

 

However, during their stay in the household, there were some... strange events occurring. Now Seungcheol isn’t a firm believer of the paranormal, he believes in physical logic rather than made up stories that spook people on Halloween, but he’d be lying if he said nothing strange ever happened. Sometimes when he and Jihoon were upstairs getting ready for bed, a loud _clunk_ would be heard downstairs, along with the sounds of cutlery jangling down onto the marble floor. Other times, late at night, something outside their bedroom would fall down with a _thud_ and disturb Seungcheol’s sleep. Whenever he checked the next morning, it was usually something hanging on the wall like a photo frame or a wall clock. Seungcheol guesses that a rat infestation was behind this, ignoring Jihoon’s joke about ghastly entities messing around. Ghosts and the paranormal were not real. The mouse traps he laid around the house never caught anything after a week of setting them down and the wee bits of cheese would slowly collect hairs.

 

“I’m gonna go downstairs, okay? I’ll be making some scrambled eggs, be sure you finish your business and get some before I eat it all!” Jihoon announces to Seungcheol, who was still in the bathroom fixing his hair.

 

“‘Kay. Be down in a sec.”

 

As Seungcheol emerges out of the shared bedroom fully dressed and not just in his underwear, the hallway greets him with the musky scent of dust. The house was rather large, and just using a vacuum cleaner to clean the halls didn’t always do the job. It was only him and Jihoon who could clean the house in its entirety - their friends live too far for them to call for a simple house clean. It was _so_ much effort to clean the entire house - the skirting boards were super long and the roof occasionally collected cobwebs. The pair could really give the house a giant spring cleaning if they were up for the task but they couldn’t be arsed.

 

The hallway presents the illusion of expanding endlessly. In the middle of the corridor was the stairwell leading downstairs. To Seungcheol’s right was just a dead end leading to a pull up staircase which leads to the attic. His parents usually dump stuff there as extra storage since this house doesn’t have a basement - and the rooms in each wing are treated as guest rooms so dumping personal stuff in there was rude in their eyes.

 

It was weird though. Seungcheol couldn’t remember the last time he went up the attic. _So why was it fully open?_ The attic opens from the outside so there was no way it could have opened from the inside.

 

Confused as hell, Seungcheol walked towards the open hatch door of the attic. Hazy light poured from the large glass window peaks over from Seungcheol’s bottom view. There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. It was just a normal, dusty attic that no one really payed attention to. Nothing unusual.

 

“Cheol!” Jihoon calls out to him, bring him out of his trance. “Your parents are here!”

 

“Okay!” Seungcheol calls back. He doesn’t hesitate to grab the latch and lift up the stairwell to close it shut.

 

In the last few moments before the attic door closed shut completely, a small, dark figure dashes past the window for a split second. Small, vague footsteps also resonated upstairs before the sound dissipated entirely.

 

It all happened in a flash and Seungcheol didn’t recognise what just occurred until the attic was shut. He stood there, gazing at the attic hatch. _Did I just hallucinate that? Yeah. Probably._ He left the attic alone and descended down the stairs to meet his boyfriend and his parents, determined to forget about the event. Whatever just happened, there had to be a viable reason for such happenings.

 

It was silent, until _bump, bump,_ **_slam_ **. Something knocks and thumps from inside the attic door.

 

* * *

 

The smell of scrambled eggs wafts towards Seungcheol as soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He practically races towards the spacious kitchen to see if Jihoon kept his promise, and indeed he did. Jihoon has a full breakfast meal ready for Seungcheol and his parents of course, who are sitting around the table chattering away. Eggs and toast are served on one big plate. A tin of beans bubbles in one pot while Jihoon fries some slices of bacon and puts the cooked ones onto a plate. This was Jihoon and Seungcheol’s domestic lifestyle and he loves it. He wishes that it would never end.

 

“Ah, Seungcheol!” his mother calls out. As old as she is, Seungcheol is still in shock that she was still walking and running like she was in her youth. He couldn’t say the same for his father though. “Come and say hello.”

 

The poor man suffered from back problems and Seungcheol was worried about his health while he was on their holiday. Nonetheless the old man proved his son wrong as he was seated in front of him - as healthy as ever. In fact, he seemed more healthier than he last saw the old man. Where was the cane he always had by him?

 

“Morning mum and dad,” he greets as he pulls up a chair.

 

“Excuse me Seungcheol. That’s all day and every day mum and dad for you,” his dad jokes. “We’re not _just_ morning parents.”

 

Seungcheol laughs. “So how was your holiday?”

 

“It was quite splendid! I feel better than ever!” his mother babbles on excitedly. “The beach resort was a lovely place for the two of us. Ahh… If only you went, it was so nice! In fact, it was so good that your father over here doesn’t even need his cane anymore.”

 

“My back’s gettin’ better already,” he says with a smile.

 

Jihoon appears with a plate of food ready in his hands and butts into the conversation. “Really? That’s great to hear, sir!” He sets the plate down at the centre and hands out serving plates for the residents of the house. The family starts to choose the food once everything was arranged.

 

“So, how did you find house sitting dear? Or living here, I suppose. There’s no difference when house sitting a house that you’ve lived in for your entire life!” Seungcheol’s mother starts out a conversation.

 

“It’s the same as ever. I think there might be a rat infestation though.”

 

“Oh, you’re just saying that to convince yourself that there aren’t any ghosts and you won’t scare yourself!” his boyfriend teases, pushing Seungcheol just for a tad bit of fun.

 

“I _don’t_ get scared!” Seungcheol pouts. “...Often.”

 

“Although sometimes… I see a woman down the hallway,” Jihoon casually drops, which had the family members in interest. Seungcheol looks like he’s about to pass out from fear.

 

“Really…?”

 

“Oh yeah.” Jihoon smiles cheekily. “She walks down the right wing in her white dressing gown at night when I go to the toilet. I named her Chihye for the giggles.” Seungcheol’s face froze in fear. No, he is not scared of a ghost story told by his boyfriend of four years. He was lying just to be cheeky. Yeah, that’s it. The paranormal does _not_ exist.

 

“Ha! Gotcha!” _Knew it._

 

“Oh my!” Seungcheol’s mother gasps in shock. “Well, we can’t have ghosts in our old house. Seungcheol spent his childhood in this house! Dears, can you go and investigate for us after breakfast?”

 

“Yeah! We’ll be like the ghostbusters, won’t we Cheollie?”

 

“But ghosts don’t exist.”

 

“Come on, it’ll be fun!

 

“Fine...” Seungcheol hesitates with a sweat.

 

After breakfast, Seungcheol instantly regrets agreeing to become a ghostbuster just to make Jihoon happy (and to laugh at him when it turns out it was indeed a rat infestation). The pair went back upstairs after their hefty meal, back into the source of the chilling events.

 

“Okay Cheol, you take on the left wing while I’ll do the right wing, yeah?”

 

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

“I’m gonna go meet Chihye and tell her to stop using my toothbrush to brush her ghost teeth,” Jihoon giggles on. He thinks its a child’s game, like it was something simple like hide and seek and whoever found the ghost got a prize. Seungcheol knew what Jihoon would probably want as a prize without him saying anything. “Chihye! Chihye!!”

 

Seungcheol waits for Jihoon’s figure to disappear into one of the many rooms. He sighs, _okay let’s play your game_ , before he starts to wander down the decaying hallway. However not far into his adventure, something heavy _clunks_ down onto the floor behind him, making the grown man’s skin jump from his bones. He swiftly looks back and...

 

The attic door was open again.

 

Seungcheol clicks his tongue. Was there a loose screw or something on that bloody attic door? He treads carefully towards it, examining for any faults on the pull up staircase. There was nothing out of place. _Strange._ The man decides to venture further inside the attic.

 

Inside the attic was filled to the brim with storage boxes cloaked in a layer of dust. Seungcheol couldn’t remember the last time they even cleaned out the attic, he only remembers  when new boxes are shoved into the corners of the room. He then checks the other side of the pull up staircase to see if there was anything he could potentially fix. Again, there was nothing he could do. Sighing in defeat, he gave up with the attic and mentally noted it down as another scary fucking thing that happens in this house. Looks like he lost this round.

 

Stretching his back after crouching down for so long, he observes around the attic. It was just towers and piles of boxes all shoved in the far corners with a couple of old closets and drawers dotted here and there. Everything was covered in a sheen of dust, but one rather _new_ box freshly set next to deteriorating ones caught his eye in particular. Eyeing it in confusion, he makes his way over to the object.

 

This box didn’t have a thick coat of dust around it, rather it had a thin layer of it. He picks it up, it's quite light, and the objects inside smush against each other. The writing on the side of the box intrigued him.

 

“To Sojeong, Jinseol and Seungkwan,” Seungcheol reads out loud. “Don’t open! By dad. Who the fuck...” He _definitely_ doesn’t know who these people are. Shivers ran down Seungcheol’s spine as billions of scenarios flash through his head.

 

Just as he turns around to investigate the box further, he staggers back, his face cold.

 

“Jesus…!”

 

In the corner, huddled into a ball, was a fuzzy dark figure. Just like the one in his dreams.

 

The figure was real. It was within his proximity and he needed to get out of there.

 

Fear overriding his brain, Seungcheol legged it down the attic. He jumps the landing and lands with a thump, scampering away until he reaches his and Jihoon’s bedroom. The sound he made when he slammed the door shut in panic shook the walls around the room.

 

Fire. He only felt the heat in his head. Unbearable heat that no one should be put through. It took a while for Seungcheol to realise that his headache has spiked once again, he was literally unable to think after the biggest scare of his life. He couldn’t move. The pain stopped him from doing anything except clutching his head and yelling out in agony.

 

“S-Seungcheol?” He didn’t recognise that voice. He didn’t recognise anything. But he did feel an object being pushed onto him, along an offering of some small white circles. “Drink.” The person commands and Seungcheol obeys. The bitter taste of the pills hit the back of his throat. After a few minutes of agonising pain, it slowly fades into nothing and the dark cloud hovering over him finally clears up. Seungcheol realises now that it was Jihoon who helped him take his pills. A glass of water sits precariously on the bedside table.

 

Jihoon embraces Seungcheol in a tight hug, kissing the other’s temple repeatedly in attempts to soothe him. “You had me worried.”

 

“Sorry...”

 

“Is something the matter?”

 

“There’s something in our attic.” Seungcheol gestures to the box he found, seated on the floor next to him.

 

Jihoon takes the box and reads the message labelled on it. “Whoa… Cheol… I was just messing around with you but…”

 

“Open it.”

 

“What?”

 

“We need to open it. There might be some stuff in there that’ll tell us what’s happening.”

 

Ripping off the tape, Jihoon tears open into the box. Inside the box were… children’s toys. Small plastic animals, water guns, stuffed bears, the lot of them. The hair at the back of Jihoon’s neck stood up. There were no children in this household.

 

“Fuck…” Jihoon regrets joking about a spectral entity in the house.

 

“Wait, something’s in here.” Seungcheol fishes something out in the bottom of the toy pile. He plucks out a worn down book, titled _Book of Remembrance_. “It’s… a memorial book?”

 

“Could be.”

 

Seungcheol opens the book at a random page and flips through it. Dust flies off into his face, making him sneeze.

 

“This dates back to about fifty years ago,” he says as he continues to flip through the book. Each page of the document was a different person, each with different family names and different dates of their death. “Why was it in a box full of toys?”

 

“Beats me.”

 

The pair continue to look through the book cautiously. Seungcheol had shifted to fiddle with the dusty toys while Jihoon takes a closer look into the book. The atmosphere was tense, clogged with uneasiness, until Jihoon pointed something out.

 

“S-Seungcheol...” He turns to Seungcheol with fear in his eyes. “Aren’t these your parents?”

 

His heart jumped out of his chest. Snatching the book from Jihoon’s frozen hands, he examines the page. He wasn’t lying. A portrait of his old mother and father were stuck onto the page. At the most recent documentation, it said that the wedded couple passed away in their sleep. ‘In memory of the Choi family. God bless you, may you rest in peace’ was written on the page.

 

They’ve been dead for _twenty_ years.

 

Blood drained from Seungcheol’s face. There was no denying it.

 

“I-”

 

“ _So you know._ ”

 

The couple screamed as none other than the old mother and father, eyes sunken down like a corpses,’, materialise before them. No footsteps were apparent, rendering their physical form unredeemable. They both came _in like ghosts_.

 

“Jihoonie…” Anxiousness wells inside Seungcheol’s chest.

 

“Seungcheol, please don’t run away from us,” the mother, her face sad, begs to her son. “We’re your family.”

 

He was _not_ going to take orders from them. “Jihoon, go up the attic,” the frightened man barks out to the other. “Now!”

 

Jihoon didn’t waste any time to scramble down the bed and out the door. Seungcheol does the same, locking his eyes on his dead parents who only stare. He’s already up the attic, but before he looks back he glimpses a view of his mother outside the bedroom door.

 

“Seungcheol!” she pleads out as she reaches an arm towards Seungcheol. “Don’t go in there!”

 

But it was too late. The attic staircase slowly creaks shut by a mysterious force, trapping Seungcheol and Jihoon inside.

 

* * *

 

_Crap. Shit. Fuck._ This wasn’t supposed to happen to them. They’re trapped in the empty, dusty attic while something was lurking with them inside, and his parents... Seungcheol tries to suppress the swelling anxiousness of the situation, but he only bursts the balloon with a thin needle.

 

Seungcheol suddenly realises. _Jihoon._

 

“Jihoon? Jihoon!” Seungcheol calls out desperately.

 

“H-Here,” he hears Jihoon sob out. Seungcheol swivels around to see Jihoon, in his weakest state, sobbing in fear. He’s huddled up in a small ball and dust started to stick onto his clothed back.

 

“Listen, Jihoon. I’ll get us out of this mess. _We’ll_ get out of this mess. We’re gonna rest in here and think out a plan for us to run past the ghosts and then we’ll find our friends out in the fog and stay at their houses for a while. Jihoon, we will get through this. I promise. Nothing bad will happen to us.” The other nods while still sobbing, unable to speak words as his throat bubbles up with constant sobs.

 

The sounds of scribbles emitted behind him.

 

Seungcheol pivots, seeing a table with a group of people around it show up without warning. A single candelabra was lit in the middle of the table. Seated around the table was man, woman, possibly the parents, an older woman, and three children. _A family. Were these the ghosts who owned the box?_

 

A woman with scraggly white hair, old and aged, blindly scrawls on a piece of paper without looking. “They’re here… They’re here…,” she chants out like she was possessed. Seungcheol creeps closer to the table of people. The family’s mother and father were young, around his and Jihoon’s age. The children look no older than ten.

 

“Hello…?” Seungcheol calls to them. He looks back to Jihoon, who’s still cowering and unaware of the other beings in the room.

 

No one turns around to acknowledge Seungcheol. _Are they ghosts?_

 

The woman keeps muttering incoherent sentences, still scribbling down on the paper below her. The family man switches the defaced paper to another sheet of blank paper, the woman unstopping. Seungcheol could see closer to her now. Her eyes were like his parents’, white and sunken. _Her face was just as dead as theirs._

 

“Who are you?” she stares blankly while asking the question.

 

“S-Seungcheol. Choi Seungcheol.” He was now behind the old woman, looking over her shoulder as she scrawls down whatever. ‘Choi Seungcheol’ was written down on her piece of paper.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

“I live here… with Jihoon.”

 

‘Live with Jihoon’ was doodled onto the paper. “What happened to you?”

 

“I beg your pardon? Nothing happened to us.”

 

“Tell me what happened.” She was persistent.

 

Seungcheol saw Jihoon move from his corner, walking over to stay beside Seungcheol. He glances to his lover. “Maybe if I tell her what happened with the thief, she might leave us alone.”

 

“Why are you crying, Jihoon. What happened to you?”

 

Jihoon whispers into her ear. He knew Seungcheol didn’t like remembering the memory of the thief who watched them sleep. The event traumatised Seungcheol and was the bane of his nightmares.

 

The woman writes down what Jihoon whispered to her. Once the page was filled with broken sentences, the man next to her takes it and reads it out. “...Something about a house robber armed with a gun.”

 

“Is that what killed you?”

 

A pin drops in Seungcheol’s silent mind. _No. It can’t be._

 

“He didn’t kill us…,” Seungcheol denied, shaking his head. “I stopped him. I know it!”

 

“Tell me. Do you think you’re alive, or dead?” The woman turns her head to Seungcheol’s direction so she could focus her blinding white eyes on him. _What was wrong with her?_ “You’ve hurt poor Seungkwan who played in the attic. You trapped him in here for hours. You could’ve _killed_ him.”

 

“Stop it!” Seungcheol yells. Jihoon starts to sob again. “Don’t act like you know us! We’re not dead!”

 

“Mummy, I’m scared…,” the only son, Seungkwan, mumbles to his mother. The mother only hushes him quietly, desperate not to stop the ritual.

 

“I know what happened. Twenty years ago, a thief crept into your bedroom and killed the two of you. They dumped both of your bodies in the muddy lake next to this house, forever laying there until someone gave you a proper burial.”

 

“No!” Seungcheol slams his fist on the table in anger.

 

But the family saw no one. All they felt was a terrifying _thump_ on the table.

 

Seungcheol was distraught about the entire situation. They can’t be dead… They’re alive and well! It was his _parents_ who were dead, and he has proof!

 

Jihoon froze up next to him. He starts to cough violently, collapsing onto the ground and holding his chest in pain. Seungcheol then realises. _His inhaler. The dust in the attic._

 

“His inhaler. His _inhaler_!” Seungcheol panics. In a fit of rage, he pushes the table and runs around the attic, burying himself in the boxes in search for a spare inhaler. He knew Jihoon had an old one in here somewhere.

 

The family table was pushed back by a spectral force, toppling the candelabra slightly. The floorboards bangs and creaked as the ghost raged around the room, in search for _something_. One of the children screams in terror as the cupboard behind her slammed open and shut. Boxes were thrown around like poltergeist activity. The woman keeps scribbling.

 

“Where is it? Where is it?” The father reads the words of the woman’s scribbles. “His inhaler. Help. He’s dying.”

 

“Where is it?!” Seungcheol screams out, tears streaming down his eyes. He doesn’t want Jihoon to die. Not here. Not now. He was never dead. He wants him to live. He loves him too much to let him go.

 

More drawers and closets bang open and shut, frightening the children further. Seungkwan has his eyes screwed shut, tears of fear dripping down his face. The paper that the woman wrote on flies off to the edge of the room, the force of the being too strong. But then everything comes to a standstill.

 

Seungcheol blacks out.

 

* * *

 

_He remembers now. The truth about himself and Jihoon._

 

_The door flung open, a dark, fuzzy figure blocked the light outside with their overcasted shadow. It was a menacing and vile presence.. They held a shotgun in their hand, and Seungcheol knew because he burst awake for the scene. He tries to brawl with the intruder, but he was sadly beaten. He begged the figure not to kill his lover. The figure smiles, saying they wouldn’t kill him with their gun._

 

_They lied, of course._

 

_Their hands found their way around Jihoon’s neck and squeezed. Jihoon awoke and struggled in his grasp, wheezing and clawing at the attacker’s wrist._

 

_He moved no more._

 

_The figure cackles. They smiled sadistically as they aimed their gun towards Seungcheol’s head._

 

_Bang._

 

Seungcheol wakes up in a normal fashion. There was no headache. He knew the truth now. He couldn’t deny it anyways. _Both he and Jihoon were ghosts_. With a deep sigh, he smashes himself back onto the bed. What a fucking day.

 

The force jolts Jihoon awake. He peeks an eye open to see Seungcheol. “Good morning.”

 

“Good morning…” Seungcheol mutters back. “Did I wake you up?”

 

“I guess,” Jihoon says as he sat up in bed, stretching his arms out. Out of habit, he reaches out for his inhaler but stops himself. “I... don’t think I’ll be needing this inhaler anymore.”

 

Seungcheol only smiles at his lover sadly.

 

* * *

 

Both Seungcheol’s parents were still in the house. Their dark, sunken eyes still scared Seungcheol, but he gave into reality. They were a dead family so they might as well stick together as one.

 

His mother embraces Seungcheol in a hug. It was in her mother’s instinct to cradle her sad child. “So. What now dear?”

 

“We’re going outside,” her son states with a serious tone.

 

“There’s nothing beyond that fog, my boy.” the father argues. Albeit emotionless and quiet, he still cared about the wellbeing of his son and son-in-law. “When you go out, you can’t return here.”

 

“That’s fine,” Jihoon speaks up. His voice wavers ever so slightly. “We made a decision.”

 

“And what will that be?”

 

“We need to get our bodies back.”

 

Both parents look at each other in concern. However, they knew what the pair were getting themselves into. Even if they begged the pair to stay safe in the house, the two would venture out into the limbo either way.

 

“I’m… sorry for my behaviour earlier on. I didn’t know…”

 

“That’s okay son.” His mother smiles sadly at him. “Take care. We’ll be here waiting for you, if you decide that it wouldn’t work out.”

 

Seungcheol’s father reaches towards the door and opens it. Thick fog was the only thing outside the house. “Good luck, my son. God bless you, and may you rest in peace.”

 

They both take a look at the fog, and back to the parents. The ghosts only smile fondly at the two. Focusing back on the fog, Jihoon and Seungcheol’s hands find each other and hold tightly before they take their first steps outside the house. The parents’ ghosts fade away into nothing behind them. They had wished so many times to see their beloved son once more. Their wish was granted and they could finally pass on.

 

The cold foggy air was chilly but it didn’t matter to the two. Limbo was a cruel land where souls wander endlessly in the foggy labyrinth. But Jihoon and Seungcheol were determined to find a way out. They wander into the fog, hand in hand, in hopes that they too, could pass on in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by the film 'The Others' (2001) and my fic alone cant add up to how good this film was, tho ik not a lot of the jicheol fam favours horror (even my beta was spooked when they read thru this lolol)
> 
> if you want to give smth horror related a try, give the film a watch! read up on it before watching ;)


End file.
